The Amber Sword Volume 2 Chapter 155
TL: Edited stuff out.
Chapter 155 – Breaking Dawn (8)
============== Raban’s POV ==============
A bright light shot straight into the air and illuminated the vast land, originating from the ruins near the southern inner gate. The varying intensity of the light made it appear ethereal.
Raban, the commander of the Firebrand Mercenaries, wore an aloof expression. His rippling muscles gave him a hard rigid outline that kept dancing from the light. He was a massive man who wielded a greatsword with a carved devil for a hilt, standing motionlessly in the night. His gaze was not on the light but the scenery outside the city.
The darkness seemed to form a black line over the horizon, and the night fog had created a thin mist in between the city and the forest. It seemed like nothing was out of the ordinary, but there was a constant shuffling sound of leaves being swept up by thousands of footsteps moving rhythmically.
The oddity of the inhuman noises was terrifying enough for one to feel like they came from hell.
A large army was moving towards the city.
Raban was not Aouine’s knight. He was formerly part of Karsuk’s forces; a retired cavalryman who had fought against Madara, but he acted like a knight to gain an advantage over the other mercenaries.
When he listened to the sounds with his eyes closed, he was almost certain they were Madara’s army. An endless amount of skeletons like a sea, shuffling across the ground row after row. The noise wormed into his ears and heart.
Fire torches began to emerge in the darkness like stars coming out during the night. They shimmered in the fog like ghost-fire, causing the mercenaries to grip their weapons subconsciously with solemn expressions.
They got into a formation and stood atop the city walls in silence, and held their breaths as the skeletons’ shuffling noises became louder.
Madara’s undead army finally appeared one by one, emerging past the swirling fog.
A few of Raban’s close subordinates stood behind him, including a few wizards. They were the ‘brains’ of the mercenaries, in charge of handling the strategies and tactics used. They were hesitant whether this battle was worth fighting for. The largest reason was not to offend the young noble, but when they saw the skeletons appearing like a tidal wave, they drew in a cold breath.
Madara. A blooming rose with all its brilliance and thorns in the darkness. It was an irresistible aura like the scent of death visiting upon one’s eventual demise—
“Commander?” A wizard with a pale-looking face asked quietly under his hood.
Raban did not answer.
“Commander, the number of undead enemies appears to be at least a few thousands,” He said: “Our total numbers with the stray sellswords around us are less than two hundred. These sellswords are also men who can hardly be trusted, even more so for that noble. Are we truly going to fight to our deaths for a single promise made to him? Even if all our brothers are to meet their demise?”
“And where are we to run to if we flee?” Raban turned around and glanced coolly at him: “I am far more familiar with the undead than you are. This city is already beset with the undead. I have learned my lesson in Karsuk. Never guess how many undead there are because their numbers far surpass your imagination.”
His eyes went back to the scenery: “However, while their numbers are indeed numerous, they are skeletons which are raised from the graves recently. If we hold our position till daylight comes they will fall back.”
“But—”
Raban raised his hand and interrupted the wizard: “Our only hope lies with that young noble. Two Gold-ranked fighters are enough to lead us out of this siege. Prepare your magic signals. Tell him he has two hours, the Firebrand mercenaries will not retreat even unto our deaths—”
He yelled to another person: “Raise our Warflags, even if we are going to face death itself, I want to see them flying in the dawn—”
He spat onto the ground. He was confident of what he knew about Brendel’s plan: “Since that young noble wants me to defend this position till dawn breaks, it means that he has a miracle up his sleeves. I want to see how the first light of dawn breaks this impossible darkness.”
[If he’s capable of doing it I don’t even mind giving up my position.]
The wizards glanced at each other with troubled looks. There were two hours left before dawn broke.
============ Medissa’s POV ===========
[Ancestral Citizen?]
Medissa’s movements have stopped moving. Her brows were knitted together as she shifted the lance in her hands. Every nerve in her body was on alert as she glared at the undead general. There was a pair of silver-colored scales woven onto his black robes, and his body gave out a chilling dread about him.
She did not know what he meant exactly by the two words. Before the Wise Kings ruled in the old eras, there was a mythical legend of a heroic knight leading a group of men and women out of Mother Marsha’s protection, defeated the entity known as the ‘Final Calamity,’ The Twilight Dragon, which marked the beginning of the Era of Chaos.
Ancestral Citizens— this title was given to the men and women of varying races who fought the Twilight Dragon.
The Golden Lineage had all but died out, with the exception of the Dragon race, becoming mere legends. The Silver Lineage was the proud existences in the Era of Chaos, but they were nearly wiped out in the battle against the the Dragon of Darkness. Most of these races had already disappeared or became obscure existences.
How could an Ancestral Citizen, an existence as old as the Golden Lineage still be around?
[Unless my Lord is a dragon.]
The Elven Princess immediately shook her head. Even a new-born dragon would not be as weak as her Lord, she thought, before she suddenly blushed and felt as though she had slighted him. She quickly apologized in her heart and refuted his words: “What nonsense are you spouting?”
Iamas’s eyes suddenly lit up with golden flames behind his mask. He was holding on to his scythe without moving but that strange glint made her feel slightly odd, and she hurriedly blinked. She was afraid she was being charmed, but his response was an echoing laughter:
“My words are exactly what they meant, and you understand it well.”
“Stop your lies!” Medissa glanced at her surroundings. The strength of the Undead General in front of her was far beyond her imagination, and she had to act carefully.
However, once she stopped moving, the mercenaries’ assault had also started to stagnate. She could not make a decision whether she should ask Brendel for reinforcements. There was a thick layer of smoke and dust forming over the location where Kabias and Brendel had fought, and she did not know what was happening there.
She was afraid of distracting him in his fight.
But this stalemate would not be in her favor if the undead general fought back against the mercenaries. She bit her faint silver lips and tried to delay for time: “The Golden Lineage is lost to the ages. There are no Ancestral Citizens, save for the dragons, left walking in this continent.”
Iamas gave a faint smile with a calm reply: “Indeed. The citizens of the Golden Lineage are considered Ancestral Citizens, but young Elven child, you forget there is the existence of the ‘Great Fool.'”
She could not help but laugh at the impossible idea: “The Dragon of Darkness? That’s far too funny. You believe my Lord is the Dragon of Darkness? Is there a point to that lie? No one will believe it—”
“No at all,” Iamas shook his head: “But a legend runs in Madara. ‘The Master of Darkness will return, its eyes sees through hearts, its mind knowing all things.’ Surely you have heard of that legend? It’s the Black Prophecy of Miirna’s citizens after all. They are a sworn enemy of your race, is it not?”
“And what of it?”
“I have merely met a certain witch in Fortress Riedon,” Iamas said nonchalantly: “As you well know, the witches are sensitive to the Powers of Darkness compared to ordinary people.”
“And you have forgotten that the Dragon of Darkness is the greatest enemy of our race. Compared to the witches, we are far more familiar with the scent of Darkness. The Black Prophecy also has this passage: ‘The Darkness will be born from no mortals, and the Glorious Races will expire amongst the flames.’ My Lord is a human, a descendant of the King of Flames, Gatel. He is a descendant of the Glorious Races, do you deny that point?” (<a title=”Didn’t Brendel die and Sophie took over his dead body? Also, he burned that village, while the fricking villages died…….” style=”cursor: help;”>TL: Flagscream.</a>)
“That is true.” Iamas raised his scythe and placed it over his shoulder, nodding.
“Stop trying to sow discord between us, undead. Who exactly are you?” Her opponent seemed to be satisfied with her attempts to delay the battle, and she started to become restless. Perhaps it was a trap after all, and he was waiting for reinforcements. She decided to attack him, and if she did not gain an advantage, she would request aid from Brendel.
“I already told you my name, Iamas. I am the Scales of War and the Judge of Fairness—”
The undead general placed one hand on his chest and bowed slightly.
“The inciter and instigator, you meant to say,” Medissa shouted as she raised her lance, but her opponent was even faster than she was. She had barely begun to urge her unicorn forward when he had already swung his scythe forward.
A dark beam of energy shot towards her.
She immediately shifted her unicorn’s direction, but the edge of the blast had reached her. Her armor pieces immediately exploded with light as they fended off the blow, causing a blast of powerful wind to spread in all directions. The mercenaries near her stumbled backward.
She released a soft groan as she received considerable damage from it.
“Your Soul Energy is very impressive. As expected from an Elven Spirit—”
Iamas raised his hand as he spoke. The squadron of Bonethorn Skeletons took out their bone spears and entered into an attacking stance. The mercenaries who had lost their footings were in no condition to defend against their strikes properly. Medissa, who was still trying to recover from the damage, instantly panicked when she realized the situation they were in.
“Stop—” She said through gritted teeth.
Iamas’s hand lowered mercilessly.
The air vibrated and whistled as rows of bone spears flew towards them, the noise echoing through the vicinity.
Her panic turned into determination.
“Ptyoona!” She roared in ancient Elven, as she released the spell ‘Spirit Wings.’
Her voice pierced through the entire battlefield, creating countless Soul Fire to emerge around her before it spread out with blinding speed into a gigantic pair of wings. A translucent web of crystalline hexagons filled up the entire street in the blink of an eye. The bone spears fell like rain from the sky smashed into the shield, reverberating loudly as they tried to force their way through, but it continued to hold up and ultimately turned them into ashes.
The mercenaries looked up in shock as the light brightened their faces, but they quickly realized they were saved.
Iamas looked on calmly, his golden irises shimmering: “An ancient technique from the Silver Elves—”
He smiled as he laid his scythe horizontally across his mount.
Medissa had no protection once the Soul Fire extended outwards—
June 9, 2017 @ 5:43 pm
Thanks for the chapter. It would be interesting if Brendel would really be the Lord of Darkness ^^ Though I think he will instead have to choice to be the lord of darkness or light or whatever else there is.
And I’m really sorry that someone wrote that kind of shit in his review on your novel. I really like you translation and it’s easy to see that you are really putting a lot of work into this while not getting much in return through all those notes you tend to post in front of a chapter.
So I really wish you good luck in finding a job and grinding a lot of art XP ^^
June 9, 2017 @ 5:44 pm
Thanks for the chapter.
June 9, 2017 @ 5:52 pm
you my friend is a good person who gives wayyy to much credit to a random person in the internet.how you translate or if you choose to stop or if you draw in patreon or not is not my business.actually is not ANYONES else business expect yourself(unless you are actually stealing money which you are !not!). now GO out there and do whatever THE HELL YOU WANT. Best regards a Translator.
June 9, 2017 @ 6:02 pm
When is chapter two of Wolf’s bio coming out?
Maybe a chapter 1.5 rant too?
June 9, 2017 @ 6:11 pm
Well… can’t be helped about them who commented like that. Because the vastness of intenet ,we (humans) tend to do things like that because it doesn’t do any harm to us a single bit (though really pisses off the one they are commenting). But hey, stuff like that is actually an absolute thing that we will face about in our life. So that we need to practically ignore the bad things and focus on good things. We can only be patient.
But things like assuming that we are doing things that different than what we are actually doing is totally annoying. And need you to wrote that long notice to straighten it up.
I’m praying for you to get many good things up ahead there. And many thanks for all of the chapters that you had released today Wolfie 😁
June 9, 2017 @ 6:19 pm
Just do it
June 9, 2017 @ 6:24 pm
Thank you very much for the Batch chapters. 🙂
I know sometimes, someone deserved to be called D**k and get multiple punches in the D**k. My advice if you couldn’t do either of those to that certain someone are, watch “Mortal Kombat” beat-up -> Fatality compilation then cool it down with videos of cat, dog or any other animal doing adorable things. It worked for me, hope it works for you. 😀
June 9, 2017 @ 6:34 pm
Thanks!
June 9, 2017 @ 7:57 pm
Holy hell dude. 12 chapters? How the fuck did you do that?
June 9, 2017 @ 8:35 pm
Thanks for the chapter! Honestly I just wait a few months between binge reading to get the full enjoyment of the series!!!! Regardless keep up the excellent work and ignore all the haters! Post as you will, I will read them when I want 🙂 Good luck going leveling up your Art XP 🙂
June 9, 2017 @ 8:39 pm
These guys just want fast, low quality chapters. This is one of the very few translated Chinese novels that is readable, thanks for the lot of work you put into your translation.
Overall, the standards of readers for Chinese and Japanese translated novels is sufficiently low that some people using machine translation better than the others are considered good. I guess their standard got lowered because they got too used to these translations, that they never bothered to read anything else, or that they don’t have any idea of the work behind any real translation, so they can’t recognise one when they see it.
Anyway, the guys making these types of complaints obviously don’t care about the quality of what they read, so you should just ignore them.
June 9, 2017 @ 9:26 pm
Holy shit. Just reading that thing about j-whoever infuriated me. I honestly think you and Shalvation translations are the best around, just above the guys at WW whom I respect thanks to their contribution to the community. Full support for whatever you do man.
June 9, 2017 @ 9:37 pm
WHO THE HELL IS THIS DUSTBIN?
GET YER PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES!!!
June 9, 2017 @ 9:42 pm
First of all thank you for this cluster bomb of chapters. Imagine me waking up 3am in the morning just to pee and I see all this chapters. No more going back to sleep XD.
Second, I just want to express my support for you and I believe the vast majority of your readers support you too. I was even considering upping my patreon support but you already have it at max anyway, so maybe in tbe future.
Third, fjustbin with f same as the function of f in “fml”. #fjustbin
June 9, 2017 @ 9:46 pm
P.s. im gonna use the “next chapter” button now. Omfg so exzcited! Kyaaa!
June 9, 2017 @ 10:05 pm
You know, this is my first post on your website. There is something I ahve to convey. You wrote that some of us might say that you should just ignore that j-something. What I want to say is: “You have done damn right by writing this!”
Of course, there will always be some flyes who will complain. But, if that annoying insect overstepps your bottom line, should you just take it and ingore it? I say no! I might sound like a chinese MC (lol), but in my humble opinion, if you don’t overdo it, sometimes their approach is not half bad (please, I do not mean killing, etc. Of course act in accord with the law…).
Also, as for the release frequency and quality I am just going to say a single feeling that I have from your translations.
My english might not be the best, but you know… When you see something terrible, many mistakes, etc. you just get pissed off and do not like the story no matter how good it is? Guess what, the opposite is also true, at elast for me. I do not know about the earlier chapters as I do not remember them so well, but from the work you are showing us now… My mind is delighted whenever I see you posted a new chapter. It might not scream with utter excitement, but for a short while, the world does seem better. Every time I see it, I do not read it immediately. I wait for the right moment, when I have the feeling that I can enjoy what you have translated to the fullest. Your work deserves for me to wait as I personally always want to have the best experience from reading it. I would hate myself from wasting it by reading it in time when I am depressed. That would be an insult to the story and your work.
In conclusion, you are the TAS translator and truthfully if someone else started translating it instead, I doubt that I would enjoy it as much as now.
Well, as I am mostly lurker, I might not post another comment near soon. Now though, I just felt I had to.
Best regards.
June 9, 2017 @ 10:10 pm
Good luck with your job searching in the future!
Hahaha, we can wait for more chapters. You already gave us plenty this month. Have fun!
June 9, 2017 @ 10:36 pm
Tanks for the chapter(s) 🙂
You are awesome! And from the heart, it is always a greate pleasure to read both your translations and youre notes. They nerver fail to make my day better.
And lastly. Your art looks realy greate and you should deffently go for it!
Trolls will get what they deserve. Don’t listen to them and have a amazing summer instead.
June 9, 2017 @ 11:13 pm
Dude, let me tell you something. No matter what you do, there will always be someone that will criticize you or insult you. Why? Cuz they are jerks or pretty much ignorant. Translating sometimes takes hours, and readers only take a few minutes to read the whole thing, and what does some of them do? Insult you. Cuz they are too lazy to learn another language so its your fault if they can’t satisfy their thirst for more chapters…..*rolls my eyes*. Human greed is one fo the worst things ever. I’ve always had great respect for translators, and I am really grateful for what they do. Translators are humans, they have a normal life, they go to school or work, or both! So I just want to tell you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for translating this novel.
(づ￣ ³￣)づ ♡
June 10, 2017 @ 12:55 am
Don’t know what those guys are complaining about, it’s a free service so stop moaning and gtfo. Really appreciate what your doing, balancing everything out. Also your translations are also one of the best I read! Thoroughly enjoy reading them, especially the effort you put into it to make it more fluid and make sense to us in some parts! Ignore these rift raft, spoiled people that do not appreciate the effort translators put. Especially that there’s no ads in your website as well!
June 10, 2017 @ 1:03 am
Making money is equivalent for making enemies, as money is directly proportional to envy and envy is directly proportional to enemy. It’s all in the money, dude. If you aren’t prepared to get dissed just don’t accept the money, but seeing how tough you are, kudos to you. Keep your head up and don’t make them pull you down. They are envious of you. You are keeping up with your word, giving us the charity to translate these wonderful chapters.
June 10, 2017 @ 2:00 am
Ugh f***that guy… I’ve always thought the way you do translations, this one in particular, is legit, and honestly I fully support your translation style. Honestly asking for help for your work especially since you *dont*have a full time job and still need to support yourself, and especially while he’s it may have been a bad idea that you are even willing to go trans full time speaks volumes about you, in a good way.
I’ve kept up with this series, not just because of the MC, or the plot, but by the extremely professional way you TL it, better then many “official” translations.
From the not d-bags of the Internet, thank you for the obvious time and dedication you have put into this for us all, and despite what happens I hope you the best in your life and career.
June 10, 2017 @ 2:29 am
You’re serving a gourmet meal and he wants deep friend twinkies
June 10, 2017 @ 3:18 pm
No…. Wolfie… July?…. U’ re gonna kill me… Dammit Justbin… x.x
Well, jokes aside. Good luck with your job hunting. Thanks for the 12 chap… 🙂
June 14, 2017 @ 5:00 am
Hi Wolfie,
I left one of the two reviews you commented on in this post (Jink). Given your past history with critical reviews, I had a strong suspicion that you would be replying at some point.
I want to make it clear to you and everyone who reads this that I did not request that you speed up posting and reduce quality. I also want to point out that I read Justbin’s review and, unlike what you claim, Justbin never respond to or even mentioned my review in their own. Period. I find your attempt to link my review and Justbin’s together distorting and nonsensical given that our stances on your translations are completely opposed. I suggested that there were areas for improvement in your work and that you spend more time editing the work (something that you yourself have identified as a problem on numerous occasions), not less. In addition to some critiques, I also mentioned a number of positive things about the translation (that it was very readable, that the pacing was good). These are things that you should be very proud of as many amateur translators on novel updates are not as strong as you in these areas.
I am glad to see that you have taken my comments seriously and are using them to improve your work. I’m sure that spending more time editing your work will help you develop skills that will benefit you down the road, whatever you may be doing. I also appreciate that you clearly separated your opening remarks from the beginning of the chapter. At the same time, the purpose of leaving reviews on NU is not for the translator or author. While I am glad that you got something out of my review, I posted it to help readers make a decision about whether or not they want to spend time reading one of the thousands of works posted on the site. To that extent, I think it is important that reviews be an honest reflection of the reviewer’s assessment of the work rather than simply existing to stroke someone’s ego.
A healthy online community is one that is not afraid to share their opinions on topics in a respectful way. I’ve noticed that you are someone who tries to influence the nature of reviews posted on the NU site by responding to them. You may not realize this, but by doing so you are essentially intimidating reviewers and community members in your blog, pressuring your readers to either censor themselves or mobilize against these so-called negative reviewers. It is possible that Justbin rethought (his/her) review and decided to take it down, but it is equally possible that your post intimidated the reviewer and s/he removed it, or that it was flagged by your readers who were mobilized by your comments. I didn’t think that Justbin’s review was particularly good, and I suspect most others who saw the review thought the same. That being said, Justbin is probably not someone who has a large presence in the NU community, so leaving the review would essentially have been harmless. I don’t think that Justbin’s review, or other negative reviews that may come up in the future, don’t deserve to exist, and am unhappy to see you essentially trying to manipulate the reviews that are posted on NU in this post.
I feel my review is an honest assessment of The Amber Sword and, as such, I will not be taking it down. Though you have entangled my review with Justbin’s and distorted its meaning, my greatest vindication is the fact that you have started implementing a number of corrections to your translation based on most of the technical issues that I pointed out. Basically this suggests that you agree at some level with what I said. In that sense, while my review is not as well-liked as many of the gushing reviews for this work on NU, I’m happy that as a side effect it is perhaps the most influential because it seems to have changed your work for the better.
One thing you should be aware of for the future is that your opening comments are the single biggest reason why The Amber Sword is attracting the kinds of reviews you mention above. You spend a lot of time justifying mercenary choices, translation choices, reasons why you are tired and don’t have time to edit your work, etc… on this blog. In essence, it is because you are shaping the conversations that people are having about this work yourself and that you invite this kind of critique. While some of that might happen anyway without you mentioning it, in the case of my own review it was because you brought up many of these issues as talking points that I was motivated to respond to them. I did so because I have something to say, and the NU community is a space where these issues are important and intensely debated. If, in the future, you don’t want to have these kinds of conversations, then you should avoid starting them.
I hope you don’t find my comments too discouraging. While you seem young, most trained writers and artists learn to distance themselves from the work and appreciate criticism because it makes them better. I trust that you are able to see the value in this kind of feedback and any future feedback the translation projects you pick up may receive in reviews on NU.
-Jink
June 14, 2017 @ 4:45 pm
First of all, you’re mistaken in the fact that I started editing my old chapters because of your review. I was already correcting the chapters from end April, but you come in approximately a month later and started pointing out things that I’m already fixing. That’s mildly annoying but it’s still fine with me, and I agreed with your comments because it’s true in the first place. I was busy with school and the chapters released during the whole year didn’t come out very well; let me fix it by giving me more time, I’m a one-man show. I was also doing it as a hobby mindset when I started, and I tend to ramble because of that, but I’m changing it along the way to allow people to enjoy it more.
The bigger second issue came when you influence future reviewers into accusing me of being money-greedy. ‘A healthy online community is one that is not afraid to share their opinions on topics in a respectful way’, lmao. What a bloody joke.
I mean, if you read your review and don’t see where you’re going wrong with this by writing “I’m doing it for money and withholding TAS chapters – ‘mercenary'”, when I release the series in a regular schedule and add donated chapters without holding any delays?
How would you feel if someone in the street accused you of doing something like a Epipen hike price? That’s how it sounds like when your fancy description of ‘being mercenary’ appeared in your review, and look what happened when I let it slide. That’s right, I saw your review and said nothing about it, then Justbin came along and cited your example, introduced his agenda and took it to another direction. If I let that slide too, then possibly another crazy review spinning a different tale about me might happen.
This is an issue about my integrity to work on the series and specifically my response to your ‘mercenary comment’, and it’s not about the criticism on how I translate the series (although I had to explain on this issue as well). I don’t respond repeatedly towards things that had been said before, but there are things that I need to snip it in the bud before it gets out of hand. I’m pissed off because I wasted a lot of time to place quality on TAS before anything else, but you make it sound I’m in for the money.
PS: I have had it with the BS from my previous companies — That’s all I have to say about discouragement.
October 25, 2017 @ 11:50 pm
Wasn’t Tulman, the guy he got the planewalker job/ system, a follower of the dragon of darkness? What if he wasn’t a follower, but the dragon of darkness. At least a dragon of darkness and the planeswalker class is just a way to pass that title along. Like Tulman was the twilight dragon, which got defeated. Then centuries later he gives the planeswalker system to someone else, that person become the dragon of darkness. Then comes Brendel. Just speculation I’m probably completely off the mark.